The Hungarian conductor Gábor Káli ended the 17/18 season on a high note: after winnng the first prize and the orchestra prize at the Hong Kong International Conducting Competition in early 2018, in August 2018 he won the prestigious Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award. As part of the prize, in summer 2019 he returned with huge success to Salzburg Festival at the helm of the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna in concert as well as in a CD production.

The season 18/19 saw Gábor Káli conducting Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich and the same opera in the Opera House of Budapest. In November he was with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in Taipei and Taichung followed by a return to the Old Buda Symphony Orchestra at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. In late March-early April he created sensation when at Iván Fischer’s invitation he replaced the ailing music director at a major European-US tour of the brilliant Budapest Festival Orchestra earning in Budapest, Hamburg, Paris and Luxembourg excellent reviews and standing ovations. Later in the season he conducted the Cologne Chamber Orchestra in Portugal an was touring with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra through their homeland.

In 2019/20 he leads in Graz a new production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and conducts The Magic Flute at Christian Thielemann’s invitation in the Semperoper in Dresden, as well as in the Hungarian State Opera House. He will be also guest of four different symphony orchestras in Hungary and conduct in Finland, France and Sweden.

In the 2020/21 season he is due to conduct a run of Turandot performances in the Bayersiche Staatsoper in Munich, Ballo in Maschera in Staatsoper Hamburg, Magic Flute in the Semperoper of Dresden and a new production of Onegin in the Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse. His concert engagements include, among others, appearances at the helm of Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Bruxelles, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain.

He joined the Staatstheater in Nürnberg as Kapellmeister and Assistant to the Generalmusikdirektor Marcus Bosch before taking the post of First Kapellmeister and Deputy Music Director in 2015. Productions he conducted there include Wozzeck, La Bohème, Verdi’s Attila, From the House of the Dead, Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto, Les pêcheurs de perles, Arabella and Otello.

Before joining the house in Nürnberg he conducted The Barber of Seville in Münster and Orpheus at the Staatstheater Darmstadt as well as being a house conductor at the Theater in Aachen, where he was in charge of the production of Hans Werner Henze’s children’s opera Pollicino.

Gábor Káli started to study piano and conducting at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest and moved to Berlin from 2004 to 2009 to continue his conducting studies with Prof. Lutz Köhler at the Universität der Künste. He joined the Dirigentenforum of the Deutsche Musikrat where he attended masterclasses of Kurt Masur, Colin Metters and Sian Edwards. He also took part in courses with Péter Eötvös, Bernhard Haitink, David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich.